Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Introduction
1. Sh. An-sky and the Jewish Ethnographic Expedition: The
Participants in the Expedition
2. Synagogues and Prayerhouses
3. Headstones, Graves, and Tombs
4. Communal Pinkesim
5. Tales About Nigunim [Melodies] and Prayers
6. Exorcisms, Charms, and Remedies
7. Scribes and Scribal Writing
Bibliography
Index
Abraham Rechtman was a folklorist, writer, and printer. A member of the S. An-Sky's Jewish Ethnographic Expedition, he was born in Proskurov, Ukraine in 1890. In 1958, he published Yidishe etnografye un folklor; zikhroynes vegn der etnografisher ekspeditsye, ongefirt fun Sh. An-ski in Argentina. He died in 1972.
Nathaniel Deutsch is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he holds the Baumgarten Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies. He is the author of The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement and the co-author (with Michael Casper) of A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg.
Noah Barrera, known by his students as Reb Noyekh, is a Yiddish educator and writer. He studied and subsequently taught Yiddish at the YIVO Institute's Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in New York. He coordinated and taught Yiddish language classes at the Workers Circle. He has published numerous Yiddish articles in the Yiddish Daily Forward and Afn Shvel. Visit him here: www.yiddishwithnoyekh.com.
"Fragment by fragment, scholars such as Rechtman, Deutsch and
Barrera restore to us some sense of the astonishing vitality of
that time and place Simon Dubnow called "the Jewish dark
continent." What a wonderful journey, and what a special
gift."—Jonathan Boyarin, Cornell University, author of Yeshiva
Days: Learning on the Lower East Side
"This translation of Abraham Rechtman's 1958 Yidishe etnografiye un
folklor is a marvelous resource for people interested in Jewish
Eastern Europe, whether scholars or lay readers. With its
introduction, this volume is a unique and important contribution to
three scholarly fields: Eastern European Jewish studies, Russian
history, and the history of anthropology. Because it is so well
written and, frankly, so entertaining, it is also likely to appeal
to general readers."—Gabriella Safran, Eva Chernov Lokey Professor
in Jewish Studies, Stanford University
"The very existence of this new volume will push forward the
project of broadening a base of knowledge that will allow future
projects to go deeper in achieving a fluid and fine-grained
representation of Yiddish language and culture in
translation."—Jeremiah Lockwood, Ab Imperio
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